Kangana Ranaut! She’s a motormouth and can shoot off her mouth like a supersonic machine gun, that too, at the drop of a hat. Her favourite battleground is Bollywood and she loves crossing swords especially with the big papa of Bollywood – Karan Johar, Greek God turned Greed God (according to Kangs) Hrithik Roshan and, of course, the nepo kids – the star kids of superstars who get stardom on a platter. She trolls, jibes and tweets words that can cut, slice and hurt with razor-sharp precision. And she has been doing it for years!

Crossing Swords With Bollywood

Though Bollywood had come out in arms against her some time back, but the indomitable lady just couldn’t be stopped. Undoubtedly, the irrepressible Kangana Ranaut who has now stepped into the political arena by winning the seat at Mandi at the recently held Lok Sabha Elections, believes that she is the harbinger of “free speech”.

Kangana Ranaut Slapgate

After recording a major win, Kangana Ranaut was heading to Delhi via Chandigarh but all hell broke loose at the Chandigarh airport. A CISF personnel Kulwinder Kaur who was responsible for frisking passengers at the airport, met Kangana and started abusing her and then slapped her on the face. The reason: Kangana had said at the peak of the farmers’ agitation in Punjab that the farmers’ morcha comprised people given “100-100 Rupees”. An agitated Kulwinder, the CISF personnel, said that her mother had sat for the agitation, along with many others, and she had taken that statement as a personal insult.

Applauding Versus Condemning

Personally, I think Kangana has got away with a lot. She needs to stop and think before she shoots her mouth. She made a very insensitive statement especially because the farmers’ agitation is such a sensitive topic for so many in the country.

However, having said that, I do not believe that a security personnel should take matters into her own hands and mete out her idea of vigilante justice. There have been many who celebrated when Kangana got slapped. Musician Vishal Dadlani promised the CISF personnel who slapped the actor-turned-politician, a job, while a businessman in Punjab reveled in the lady’s act and announced a reward of Rs 1,00,000. Periyar Gold also promised the CISF lady a gold ring. Singer Sona Mohapatra has strongly slammed Vishal Dadlani for supporting the act.

However many in Bollywood, despite their inside fracas with Kangana, condemned the attack strongly. Kangana’s nemesis Hrithik Roshan took to Twitter and spoke against the incident and so did veteran actor Shabana Azmi who said though she didn’t like Kangana, she still condemned the incident. Alia Bhatt, Anupam Kher and Raveena Tandon have also spoken out about the incident.

TheGlitz Take

TheGlitz agrees. One cannot take “justice” into our hands, there are courts for that. More so, a security personnel. A security personnel is someone we trust; who we think will protect us. But when they turn out to be the arbitrators of a harmful act, the moot question arises, who can we trust?

As we speak: The CISF female constable accused of slapping BJP MP Kangana Ranaut at Chandigarh airport has not yet been taken into custody. Although an FIR has been filed against the constable under IPC sections 321 and 341, no arrests have been made.

Appreciating such an act is “cringy”. We say that not because we are fans of Kangana Ranaut – we aren’t -in fact, we have crossed swords many times with the lady. But a security personnel breaking protocol and slapping a passenger while on duty is definitely to be condemned. People who are lauding the personnel’s act should be also pulled up. Violence is never the answer. However, emotionally hurt the lady may be, the CISF was on duty and she should have realised her limits. This time, it was a slap. Next time, who knows, what it could be?

As of now, three members from SIT will be probing this attack on the actor-MP-elect. May justice and sense prevail!